Original subtitles

- (Narrator): At the southern edge of the Pantanal,

sightings of this small wild cat have hit a new high.

The ocelot is making a major comeback.

Howler monkeys, toucans, and deer all call this place home.

Yet none of them is prey for this stealthy hunter.

(grunting)

So scientists struggle to understand the ocelot's success.

The Pantanal is a tropical wetland

where all life is defined by the seasons.

From October to March it's the rainy season.

By April, 80% of the land disappears

under more than three feet of water.

Come the dry season,

the water recedes.

Late September.

It hasn't rained for months.

The landscape is parched and the food is scarce

for the animals that live here.

Yet, the dramatic ebb and flow of the seasons help wildlife.

It's prevented the development of large-scale industrial agriculture.

The Pantanal is ten-times larger than the Everglades

and spans three countries, mostly in Brazil.

It's a pristine place where wildlife still rules.

But here, at its southern edge, a relatively small farm has carved a slice

out of the wetlands and turned it into a rice plantation.

Most environmentalists don't believe that conservation

and agriculture are a good mix.

But ecologist Henrique Concone noticed the local wildlife seems to have embraced the change.

- What is a very interesting thing about the irrigation rice process here

is that most of this water that is irrigating the rice

on the ranch is exactly on the dry season.

So you have a very unique situation where,

during the dry season, most of the Pantanal is dry,

but here you can see some portion of land

with a lot of water, which will attract a lot of wildlife.

- (Narrator): Henrique is working on a Ph.D.

And his focus is the ocelot.

Also known as the dwarf leopard.

It's South America's fiercest small cat.

Like all wild cat species,

ocelot populations are declining due to habitat loss.

But on this farm, the species seems to be thriving.

(Enrique): In Brazil there are nine species of wild cats,

of those nine species, seven are considered small cats.

Among those seven species of small cats,

the ocelot is the largest one.

They can attain a little bit more than one meter in length.

From tip of the nose, tip of the tail.

And big males will weigh up to 15 kilos.

It's a cat that's heavily spotted with stripes also on the side,

so for many it's considered one of the most beautiful cats in the world.

- (Narrator): The best time to spot an ocelot is at night,

when the small cats use the cover of darkness to hunt.

Two years ago, on a similar nocturnal survey,

Henrique nicknamed the area Cat Country.

- (Narrator): Finding out why this was an ocelot hotspot

is the focus of Henrique's doctoral research.

It seemed counter intuitive but could manmade landscapes,

if done well, actually help wildlife?

His goal is to understand if,

and how humans and wildlife can co-exist.

A family of capybaras is caught in the headlights.

Traffic is unusual in these parts!

They're all safely across the road and disappear

into the darkness.

Just down the road, the spotlight reveals

a female maned wolf and her three playful pups.

At about three feet tall, the mother looks like a fox on stilts,

but they are neither foxes nor wolves.

They're the tallest wild canid in the world,

a family that includes domestic dogs.

Their hunting grounds are Brazil's grasslands,

known as the cerrado, where their long legs give them

a distinct edge.

The team continues into the heart of Cat Country.

And it's not long before they find what they're looking for.

It's a young female.

And she does not care much for the paparazzi

that have invaded her territory.

The white fur around her eyes reflects light into her pupils,

and enhances her powerful night vision.

She quietly withdraws into the bush.

Henrique goes on these night-spotting missions once a week.

The more sightings, the more data he can use

to prove his theory.

Deeper in the forest, the glare of the spotlight

catches another ocelot.

A male this time.

Ocelots mark their territory

by rubbing against trees and bushes.

In this region, their home range is up to three square miles.

Females have smaller territories

and he likely has several living in his.

He patrols his entire home range every few days,

in search of prey.

Ocelots don't stalk their prey. They either patiently wait

and ambush whatever happens to pass by.

Or they follow scent trails.

This male seems to be onto something.

He doesn't know it but he's being observed

by another male.

This one has been lucky

and carries the bloody traces of a fresh kill on his fur.

A yellow anaconda.

The hungry cat ripped off the snake's head

to avoid a deadly embrace.

And he's not about to let another cat claim his prize.

Ocelot males, like females, are fiercely territorial.

The anaconda is a prize worth defending.

It will feed a hungry cat for several days.

The intruder moves in.

(grunting)

(grunting)

(grunting)

The message is loud and clear, and the intruder moves on.

The successful hunter drags his unwieldy dinner into the forest

to dine in peace.

The night is still young for the nocturnal ocelots.

But for Henrique, it's time for bed.

Not a record-breaking night for the most ocelot sightings,

but some amazing behavior!

Dawn returns to Cat Country.

The night crowd retreats.

And the forest awakens to the calls

of its diurnal inhabitants.

(forest sounds)

The loudest of them all is the howler monkey.

(howler monkey calls)

They're the loudest land animals in the Western Hemisphere.

Their booming calls can be heard three miles away.

Both sexes call.

(howler monkey calls)

But today it's the dominant male that notifies other groups

of their position.

A mother and her infant start their day dining on flowers.

They're called black howler monkeys

even though they're all born a golden brown.

Only the males turn black when they mature.

This young juvenile will be covered in black fur

by the time he's two and a half years old.

Unlike most South American monkeys,

both male and female howler monkeys have color vision.

So if it's not the scent of these Ipe flowers,

it may be their bright pink color

that attracts these primates.

One thing's for sure, it's quite a treat.

One that only happens in the middle of the dry season.

Right after it drops its leaves,

the Ipe tree produces large clusters of beautiful flowers.

The flowers are nutritious and much sought after.

Howlers have a prehensile tail that has no fur underneath.

It makes a great fifth limb.

The youngster strikes out on his own.

He soon finds out plucking flowers is not as easy as it looks

even with the help of his tail.

Especially at the end of the flowering season,

when the bright pink prize is hard to reach.

A few branches away, a southern crested caracara

eyes the young howler with interest.

Luckily for the young howler this raptor is a scavenger.

The rest of the troop is always on the lookout for predators

especially for raptors.

The opportunistic caracara has spotted an easier target.

On a nearby tree, a savanna hawk enjoys the catch of the day.

The caracara tries to force the hawk to drop its food.

These winged bullies are fiercely territorial.

And aren't afraid to tell other birds to take a hike.

Especially at this time of year,

when farm workers prepare the fields for new rice crops.

As the plow churns up the soil,

it unearths worms, lizards and insects, living underground.

Lined up at the banquet table,

the steely-eyed raptors stand watch,

ready to sweep in for a quick meal.

The seasonal flooding in the Pantanal means

that the land isn't very productive.

That and the scarcity of roads keep the human population low.

Farms are large and widely dispersed.

On this farm, some of the land has been set aside

as an official natural preserve.

And that's the part Henrique calls "Cat Country".

- (Narrator): Henrique sets the camera traps up at many different locations.

- (Narrator): The snapshots he collects will help him establish

ocelot density in the area.

- (Narrator): Henrique's research could provide a glimpse

of what can be done to help wildlife in farmed areas.

- (Narrator): The GPS data will help Henrique determine the ocelots' home range,

how long and how far they travel and, more importantly,

how they use the native forest compared to the rice fields.

For now, he's still busy collecting hard evidence.

- (Narrator): Ocelots have to eat about two pounds of food a day.

Usually only fifty per cent of an ocelot's diet is rodents.

- (Henrique): Ocelots, they have a very broad diet,

they can prey upon birds, lizards, snakes

and small and medium-sized mammals.

I've been able to check that they can prey upon also brocket deer

and rheas, but most of their diet,

through the analysis of scat we have found that

up to eighty percent or more of their diet is composed by small rodents.

- (Narrator): The ocelots here are eating 30% more

small rodents in their diet. That's a big difference.

It's because they live near a rice plantation.

That's what Pedro Estrela suspects.

He's a rodent expert.

- (Pedro): One of the first things we want to study

is the diversity of rodents in agricultural systems,

or agro-ecosystems.

The diversity can be measured by the number of species

that are found, but also by their abundance,

which means the number of individuals of each species

that are found, so these can be a good measure of how

an agricultural ecosystem has impacted a natural ecosystem.

- (Narrator): Even native species of rodents

have a downside. They make great hosts for parasites.

And that's why Fabiana Lopes Rocha is interested

in the project. She's a parasitology expert.

- (Fabiana): Parasites, they are part of the ecosystem,

they act as a force of population regulation.

The problem is when we alter the environment,

so we change the relationships between parasites

and their hosts, and this can lead to an increase

of the prevalence of some diseases and cause outbreaks.

- (Narrator): For ocelots, one of the most dangerous parasites

is Trypanosoma cruzi which in humans causes chagas disease.

If an ocelot eats a rodent that carries this parasite,

it gets infected.

- (Fabiana): Trypanosoma cruzi cause heart failure,

which can affect the life expectancy

and also capacity of locomotion and capacity of predation,

which can be a huge problem for a predator.

- (Narrator): As night falls upon Cat Country...

...swarms of mosquitoes take to the dark skies.

It's time for Pedro and Fabiana to set out their traps.

They use peanut butter as bait.

Fabiana notes the trap locations with a GPS.

- (Narrator): They'll be back in the morning to check out the traps.

What they find may shed new light on what makes this place Cat Country.

- (Narrator): Back on the road, Henrique looks for more clues.

A crescent moon barely lights up the night sky.

A perfect night for ocelots to hunt and for ocelot sightings.

But it's a giant anteater that Henrique sees first.

These peaceful and exotic looking creatures

have the lowest body temperature of any mammal,

about 91 degrees Fahrenheit.

They're active mostly at dawn or dusk.

And feast on insects.

Next, a marsh deer steps into the spotlight.

They graze on aquatic plants.

But they'll also browse the shrubbery.

It's a pair of crab eating foxes that really catches Henrique's attention.

Foxes and ocelots compete for some of the same kinds of prey.

They do eat a lot of crabs, as their name suggests,

but this one has a rodent that it probably caught

in the rice paddies.

A little further into the bush, a female ocelot is on the prowl.

She's spotted something off the ground.

It could be a bird nest with some tasty eggs

or chicks inside.

No luck this time.

It's a termite nest!

It's the start of the mating season.

A crucial time for ocelots.

Females only have one or two kittens every other year.

This one leaves a message.

Her pungent urine warns other females to stay away.

And lets males know she's ready to mate.

Another female is lactating and has left her kittens

in a safe place while she hunts.

She'll nurse them for only six weeks,

but will continue to provide them with food for a few months

before teaching them to hunt.

For Henrique, all this female activity is a good omen,

a sign that a new generation of ocelots

will soon make its home in Cat Country.

As the sun rises over the Pantanal,

the howler monkeys once again gather for breakfast.

By now, there are no more flowers on the trees.

So they settle for the green leaves.

Although howler monkeys are one of the largest monkeys

in the Americas, they mostly subsist on leaves.

Older leaves are not that nutritious

so they have to spend most of the day foraging.

In another tree,

a toucan is considering a breakfast of fruits.

There are 20 species of toucans in Brazil

and this toco toucan is the largest of them all.

The bill can sometimes grow as long as the bird's body.

And although it looks massive, the bill is hollow and light.

It isn't just beautiful, it's also works as

an adjustable thermal radiator that a toucan can use

to warm and cool itself.

Although these toucans spend a lot of time in trees,

they are not very good at flying.

They travel among trees by hopping.

When they do take flight, they flap their wings vigorously,

then glide, traveling only short distances.

This toucan spots a jenipapo tree, full of ripe fruits.

The beak does all the work.

Its sharp saw-like edges tear the fruit's shell right off

and expose the juicy flesh.

On the ground, the rice fields undergo

a dramatic transformation.

Now that the soil has been tilled, and the seeds sown,

water from the nearby Miranda River begins to flow.

Channeled by a series of man-made dikes

into the parched fields.

Turning an arid plain...

...into a shimmering wetland.

The water attracts a flock of waders.

The bare-faced ibises are eager to feast on the insects,

worms and other small invertebrates forced out

of the ground by the water.

But they dine at a leisurely pace.

It's a gregarious species,

unlike its cousin the plumbeous ibis,

which prefers the bare-faced's company to its own kind.

Elegant black-necked stilts and lesser yellow legs

delicately probe the mud for smaller prey.

A snail kite snatches-up an apple snail shell...

...but soon drops it.

Someone else has already eaten the snail!

Caracara are here too.

Always first in line for a free meal.

Even a jabiru, one of the world's largest birds,

has joined the feeding waders.

The manufactured landscape of the rice fields

doesn't deter the wildlife here.

This yellow anaconda takes advantage of the irrigation channels.

It prefers to be in water so the farm dikes are like highways.

This cold-blooded predator is almost fifteen feet of pure muscle.

It's built to crush the life out

of its victims and swallow them whole.

Its tongue picks up microscopic particles from the air

to track its next meal.

Although it's large, it has an appetite for small rodents.

A fieldworker breaks down levees to create

new pathways for the water.

A process that has changed little over centuries.

On this farm, they average more than 6000 pounds of rice per acre.

To achieve this, they stagger the crops.

Henrique and his colleagues use this to their advantage.

They've set their rodent traps in different kinds of habitats

found in and near the farm fields.

Each location will give them a sample

of the rodent population living there.

They'll be able to correlate the species

they find with the different stages of rice production.

There's not much growing here yet.

Just young small sprouts a couple of weeks old.

- (Narrator): All the traps here are empty.

- (Narrator): Unless you count the ants. They seem very fond of peanut butter!

- (Narrator): This confirms Pedro's hunch.

- (Narrator): The next location is a rice field that's more mature.

Pedro and Fabiana have set the traps at the edge of the field,

where the bush is thicker and offers more shelter.

- (Narrator): It's hard to identify

the exact rodent species at the bottom of a trap.

- (Narrator): It's a species of marsh rat.

It makes a lot of sense to find it here.

- (Narrator): The good news keeps coming.

- (Narrator): This healthy specimen is a Brazilian guinea pig.

It looks like a domestic guinea pig and it might even be

the same species as its wild ancestor.

Out of the 39 traps set in this mature field,

they capture six different rodents, a 15% success rate,

which in the world of field science is a good day.

Best part is out of the six rodents captured,

Pedro and Fabiana could identify four of the species.

The other two will take a bit longer.

- (Pedro): We can't draw any conclusions at the present time,

but we can say that we have had higher capture than we expected,

especially in terms of diversity more than number

with a high capture success.

- (Narrator): The biggest surprise comes when

the team moves across the road to check on the traps

set in the natural habitat,

a forest.

- (Narrator): But then, an interesting discovery.

- (Narrator): Ocelots' diets are varied

but, except for the occasional anaconda, brocket deer or rhea,

they usually hunt animals that are about their size,

or smaller.

An opossum like this one in the trap would make

a fine meal for an ocelot!

- (Pedro): We collected one species of marsupial

of the genus Philander, two females, the two were pregnant,

so we released them back into nature.

- (Narrator): Of the 30 traps laid in the native forest

of the Pantanal, Pedro only captured two marsupials

and no rodents. It's unusual not to find any native rodents.

Especially when compared to the abundance of rodents

trapped closer to the rice plantation.

Compared to the natural forest,

the habitat closer to the rice fields

seems to have far more for an ocelot to eat!

The forest trail cameras took photos of a magnificent female jaguar

but no ocelots this time!

Even when there are "lots" of ocelots

they can still be elusive.

But on the other side of the road,

near a bridge that leads to the rice fields,

Henrique has better results.

It looks like it was a busy night for this mother ocelot.

The camera shows her first taking a rodent to her kitten.

Next she moves her kitten,

quite a large juvenile about two months old, to a new location.

Then she goes back hunting for more food.

It seems ocelots are quite at home - and well fed -

in the transitional habitat between the cultivated land

and the natural forest.

As the tropical midday sun heats up the rice fields,

an ocelot finds shelter in the native forest

fringing the rice paddy.

From its perch, it surveys its kingdom.

A manmade plantation.

Ocelots are considered to be a vulnerable and elusive species

that prefers the dense cover of forests to open areas.

It's early days but Henrique's findings seem to challenge that.

In this area the rice fields seem to be providing

plenty of rodent species that the ocelots can hunt.

Are the ocelots desperate

or adapting well to their changing world?

- (Henrique): This really attracted my attention

because all the literature that you have from ocelots,

you always will see that they need forest cover to survive,

and here you are able to see ocelots using

very open areas of irrigated rice fields,

even when the land is naked, with no plants.

So it's very interesting because it shows that

this species might be much more adaptable

than was previously thought,

which is very important to understand,

because you can now start looking at human disturbed areas

and understand how different

wild species can survive and thrive in this kind of habitat.

- (Narrator): Henrique's results are preliminary.

They still need to know what happened to the native forest rodents

and whether there will be unintended consequences

for other species if there are more ocelots out hunting.

It will take a lot more data to really hone in on how to achieve

the right balance between agriculture

and the preservation of wildlife.

But Henrique is hopeful.

- (Henrique): I have two boys and I always think of my kids

when I'm doing fieldwork. If they would be able

to see what I'm seeing nowadays.

For me it's very good to notice that they're growing up

in a wild area and they're being able to see a lot of wildlife.

Which is for me it's very, very special and important for them.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪